Earlier this year, BWIM hired Pamela Durso as its first full-time director in six years. BWIM is in better financial and organizational shape than ever, at a time when the numbers of Baptist women in ministry in the South are steadily growing, with the exception of Texas. Whereas Texas Baptists in the past have stood at the forefront of some Baptist trends - including early resistance to fundamentalism in the 1980s and 1990s - prophetic voices in Texas Baptist life in recent years have been increasingly muted by ascendant fundamentalists and internal controversies within the BGCT. Church historian Rosalie Beck suggests that full support of women in ministry has been historically sacrificed in order to broker peace among Texas Baptists, who as a whole lean more to the right than left (moderate Texas Baptists tend to be more conservative than moderate Baptists in other states).

At this point in the modern saga of Baptists in the South, it is quite apparent that even moderate Baptist statewide organizations (whether traditional conventions or more recently-formed state CBF organizations), grappling with a wide diversity of views among the local congregations from whence their support comes, are not in a position to fully exercise the freedom of conscience that is the historical hallmark of Baptists. While an inherent conservative bias in Texas Baptist life disallows full support of women in ministry, emotional attachments to SBC mission agencies on the part of many older members of openly moderate congregations prevent many churches in the southeastern states from aligning solely with CBF. In addition, the modern Baptist confusion over the historical Baptist positions of full religious liberty and separation of church and state poses an ongoing challenge. In short, traditional and moderate state Baptist organizations are often pushed or pulled down a path of political and/or pragmatic reality that results in incremental changes, or in some cases little change at all.

The sometimes-slow change taking place at the state level means that specific advocacy-focused moderate, independent Baptist organizations, such as Baptist Women in Ministry, are vital to the shaping of contemporary Baptist thought and life.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Religion Dispatches offers a first hand account of the recent Tea Party protest (dubbed the 9/12 Coalition) in Washington D.C., organized by health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and the Freedom Federation (see below for a longer list of sponsoring corporations and organizations), a consortium of Religious Right organizations that advocates for limited government, free enterprise, and free markets (no word on how these agendas fit in the Gospels).

More on the Freedom Federation, founded this summer in opposition to President Obama and Health Care Reform:

Among the groups represented are the American Association of Christian Counselors, the American Family Association, Catholic Online, Family Research Council, High Impact Leadership Coalition, Strang Communications, Traditional Values Coalition, Teen Mania, and Vision America. (see recent Christianity Today story)

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

In recent months, the Religious Right has been in a funk. With hero George W. Bush out of office and a popular Democratic president in office who has the support of many Christians, Focus on the Family was forced to lay off much of its work force.

But salvation has arrived from an unexpected quarter: the Religious Right, according to the Washington Post, has found a new cause - opposition to Health Care Reform.

Once an advocate of so-called "pro-life" policies (more properly, "anti-abortion" policies), the Religious Right is now openly defending insurance companies in a battle against political reforms that would extend medical care and a lifeline to the tens of millions who, for lack of money, endure pain and suffering while facing the ever-present prospect of financial ruin and even death, simply because they cannot afford exorbitant insurance policies, or, in the case of the insured, have no assurance that their insurance company will pay for critical, life-saving treatments and medications.

While it is true that the Religious Right has long advocated for Republican "trickle-down" tax policies that favor the wealthy over the poor, now these religious crusaders have seemingly come out of the closet altogether in championing corporate America and advocating anti-life, pro-death policies.

Why? Because the prospect of government intervening to save the lives of sick and dying citizens is ... well ... ungodly, according to the Religious Right. Only the Church has a right to take care of those persons who cannot afford medical care, after all (not that it will). Unless, of course, the subject is persons-not-yet ... then it is the government's duty to protect sperm and egg, even at the risk of maiming and killing living human beings.

Anyway ... Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention (see Washington Post link) seems quite happy about the new anti-life, pro-death stance of the Religious Right: "Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and Henry Waxman have done more to energize Christian conservatives than any conservative leader could have done with this health-care package," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "I, who never believed that we were dead, did not believe that it would happen this quickly."

How many millions will suffer, and how many thousands needlessly die, in order to fulfill the Religious Right vision of a nation that values corporate profits over human life?